A 54-year-old man who punched his teenage daughter thought he was hitting his wife during the domestic assault.
A 54-year-old man who punched his teenage daughter thought he was hitting his wife during the domestic assault.
The Maitland man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told magistrate John Chicken he was attacked from behind and thought he was punching his wife when he struck the girl in the ribs.
“Why were you punching anyone at all?” Mr Chicken asked.
The man responded: “Because I got attacked from behind...it’s an ongoing situation, I just had enough.”
“So you think it’s alright to punch your wife?” Mr Chicken said.
The man said: “If she hit me.”
He paused and then said: “No I don’t think it’s alright to hit anyone.”
He told the court he had worked earlier in the day and came home sometime in the afternoon on July 27.
He said he and his wife were both sick and he was trying to take a nap, but she was complaining she couldn’t hear the television. Police documents tendered to the court said an argument between the couple escalated in the lounge room and the man went into a child’s bedroom where the woman alleged she heard one of the children say: “Get out of my room, get out of my room.”
The woman told police she grabbed the man’s arm in an attempt to get him out but he pushed her onto a bed and was kicking her as they wrestled.
The court heard the man went into the kitchen and threw cups before he entered the lounge room where the teenage girl was.
His wife followed, they continued to argue, the man pushed the woman and the girl yelled: “Leave my mum alone”.
The girl hit the man in the back and he turned and punched her.
He was unrepresented in court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to assault.